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Stories Tagged as

Recycling

Retired EV batteries will get a second life at a new factory in Texas

by Elizabeth Trovall
Oct 25, 2024
This week the DOE announced a $20 million grant to partially finance this new manufacturing facility. It’s part of an emerging EV battery reuse ecosystem.
"Even if a battery is at like 70%, 80%, even lower-percent capacity, it's basically more environmentally friendly to to repurpose that battery instead of sending it directly to recycling," said Jessica Dunn with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images
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New California law forces brands to add clothing recycling networks

by Caleigh Wells
Oct 10, 2024
The law's aimed at improving a clothing recycling rate of only 15 percent.
California's new plants will work to reduce the massive rate of clothing waste.
Caleigh Wells/Marketplace
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Think of your electronic waste as a mine of resources

by Stephanie Hughes
Mar 20, 2024
E-waste is filled with old parts and precious metals that could be worth a lot to the right people.
About half of states have take-back laws that require device makers to accept old versions for recycling.
Cesar Manso/AFP via Getty Images
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Lego says making bricks from recycled bottles produces more carbon than new plastic

by Stephanie Hughes
Sep 25, 2023
Another example of how hard it can be to recycle polymers.
It takes a lot of energy and money to recycle plastics.
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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How do waste plants pick through all our unsorted recyclables?

by Caleigh Wells
Aug 14, 2023
Single-stream recycling is convenient for consumers, but difficult for recycling companies. It requires a long and complicated process to make trash valuable.
The pile at the beginning of the day represents some of the recyclables from roughly 5 million daily consumers.
Caleigh Wells/KCRW
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How companies commodify your recycled waste

by Kai Ryssdal and Maria Hollenhorst
May 3, 2023
We tour a materials recovery facility in California, where the stuff consumers toss into recycling bins is sorted.
Athens Services, a Southern California waste collection an recycling company, is just one part of a global system that recycles waste into new packaging and products.
Antoinette Brock/Marketplace
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How one company is tackling the tricky — and expensive — task of recycling clothing

by Caleigh Wells
May 1, 2023
Diverting textiles from landfills is more difficult and more expensive than doing so for paper and glass. A group of formerly incarcerated workers is paving the way.
Companies send in unsold stock and returned clothes to divert their waste from landfills.
Caleigh Wells
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The origins of a glass recycling empire

by Sarah Leeson
Aug 19, 2022
The sand Glass Half Full creates from processed bottles is repurposed for flood disaster relief and mitigating coastal erosion, among other things.
Glass Half Full turns the glass it collects into a sand product that can be used in anything from art to disaster relief.
Courtesy Glass Half Full
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Will “deprinting” reduce the paper industry’s carbon footprint?

by Stephen Beard
Aug 17, 2022
A new device will allow the same sheet of paper to be erased and reprinted 10 times, cutting waste and carbon emissions.
The cycle of felling trees, transporting them and using fossil fuel-based processes to turn them into pulp for paper is highly polluting.
rustycanuck/Getty Images
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Here's how HP recycles its ink cartridges — and works on climate pledges

by Kai Ryssdal and Andie Corban
Aug 2, 2022
We visit an 80,000-square-foot facility in La Vergne, Tennessee, where the cartridges are taken apart and readied for their next life.
James McCall, left, and Kai Ryssdal stand next to one of the hundreds of boxes filled with used HP ink cartridges.
Andie Corban/Marketplace
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